90s pop country was awesome.
Radio country now is terrible, but there is still good pop stuff being made. I really like Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, Lindi Ortega for pop country. And then there is the enormous amount of great Americana still being made..
Its soooooo formulaic though, they recycle whatever is immediately popular and regurgitate every new artist to look and sound like the popular thing. Right now its the fratboy twangy pop, started a few years ago by Kenny Chesney (and Tim McGraw to a degree) and now these new artists are far worse than they were.
You also have to view any music scene with some suspicion when Shania Twain was a trail blazer because she upped the sex appeal. When Reba and Trisha Yearwood were popular in the 90s, all female acts dressed like them, until Shania. Then Nashville packaged her look and sold it to all the female artists of the early 2000s. Now you seldom hear any female artists on country radio except Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood because its the fratboys that are being force fed on the air. Its really awful shit.